Here We Are
by LaDyPaRaNoiD
Summary: Another one-shot. . A Shinichi and Shiho moment with a twist. ShinichiRan.


Here We Are

"Here we are," I murmur softly, stroking the windowsill absently. The silence that greets me is almost reverent but when I turn to look, I see him staring at me with those unfathomable eyes. I smile but I know it looks empty.

I feel empty.

For how can I feel whole when I have nothing to fill this void in my heart? No family to speak of, no friends to turn to and definitely no one to love. Who loves me back, that is. Because, you see, I do love. I am _in _love.

But only with a shadow.

"How many times?" I ask him. I pull up a chair and sits right opposite of him. "How many times have you turned away from me? How many times have you walked away? To be with _her?"_

This time something sparks in his eyes. He frowns at me and opens his mouth to speak. I shake my head and motions for him to shut up. No, I don't want to listen to his answer. I don't want to listen to a word he says anymore.

"Don't you realize that _I _was the one who had always been by your side? That _I _was the one who always helped you with your cases? What does _she know? She's nothing like you, or me. She doesn't understand what reality is. She doesn't know the real face everybody hides behind their masks. She lives in a different world than us. A happy, __idealistic world where everything's perfect and there are no bad guys to take it away."_

"Shiho," he begins but I cut him off with a sharp glance. He goes on with his speech nonetheless, telling me how wrong I am, how Ran's world is never perfect and on and on he goes about her. I stop listening when he starts telling me about how brave Ran had been throughout her life.

Brave? How brave should you be to go through life with parents who love you, with a home to go back to, with a childhood to brag of, and with a special person who adores you?

You see, that is everything she owns that I never could. 

Parents? I can't even remember how warm my mother's hugs are. No, I can't even remember ever being hugged at all. But I must have been a _few _times. I vaguely recall how affectionate my parents had been. Right before they were murdered, of course.

Home? Ever since I was a little girl, I had to stay in hiding with my sister, working for _them. Even the house I shared with my sister wasn't a home to me. How could it be? There were people coming in and out of it every day. Our contacts._

Childhood? I was never a child to begin with. I had never in my life been a child. How can I have a childhood?

A special person who adores me? _Adores _me? When I've killed hundreds and associated with much, much more murders?

"I ask you this, Shinichi." I put both my hands on the backrest of his chair and leaned in so close, our breath mingled. I speak in a low voice. "Does Ran understand your world? She sees a murderer and she sees only a cold-blooded being that has no regards for other's lives. What about you? When you see a murderer, what do you _really _see?"

"I—"

"No." I put a finger on his lips and draws back to stare at him. "You see a father whose daughter had been torn away from him. You see a brother who had a sister ripped from his side. You see a lover who lost his love in the hands of another killer. You see a man taken away from his family."

"I see a person who strayed from the correct path and made the wrong choice," he said calmly. Those glorious eyes bore into me. How many times had I wished them to be filled with warmth, affection and even love when he looks at me? But now, there are only defiance and even pity in them.

He _pitied me._

I suppose he has every right to. After all, how could the cold, distant Shiho that I once was become this desperate, twisted person? It is true, then, the proverb 'love makes people do crazy things'. I have done the craziest thing a people in love would do. I have kidnapped the one I love.

But he had come on his own will.

_To tell me that it will never work out between us._

Ah, yes. I remember now. I had pulled out a gun I didn't realize I'd carried. I had tied him up to this chair. I had locked the door to my room so Professor would never guess that I am in here when he returns home. I had pointed the gun in his face, smiling rather sadly.

And now, here we are.

Here we are in the ending chapter of our live stories. For I know that none of us will walk out of this room alive.

"Tell me you love me." I raise the gun again, this time aiming for his heart. No, that would be a slow death. I shift the gun so it points to his forehead. There, quick, painless death. A faint smile lights up my face as I remember the time when we had been in this position before.

He was Conan then, in danger of his identity being exposed. I knew that he wanted to tell _her who he really was. So I had gone to his hospital room and put it right in his face. I told him that __they had discovered me. I told him that I had to kill him to silence him. I told him that the Professor and his parents had already died. He had looked at me in a shocked, betrayed and fearful expression then._

But that was only a fake gun.

He shakes his head. His eyes look sad now. I am disappointed. I was hoping that he would be regretful. Yes, he should regret never giving me a chance. Even now, he refuses to see how _right _we are for each other.

"I love Ran."

I shoot. But the bullet goes through the wall behind him. I see that his temple is sweating. Despite the bravado he is putting on, I know that he is afraid of dying. Why not end this now? Why not tell me that he loves me so we can live happily together? So we can live?

"I have and will never love anyone else but Ran. If I die today, I will die knowing that I love her. And that she loves me."

I don't know why I'm laughing now. I never laugh. And now here I am, letting my voice escape my mouth in this unfamiliar sound. There is something inside me that is tearing at my heart. It is very painful. And I only _laugh_ at that?

What's this?

I touch my cheek and it is wet. Tears.

"Tell me you love me," I repeat. I don't care if I am crying. I just want to hear those words from him.

"I'm sorry, Shiho."

"No, lie to me! Tell me you love me!" I insist. I will be happy just hearing them, even though I know how untrue they are.

"No."

"Bastard."

And then, I pull the trigger.

~@~~@~~@~~@~

The Professor had been too late. He heard the gunshot even from his car. His first thought was that the men in black had gotten to Shiho. But the door was locked. And he only saw Shinichi's sneakers and Shiho's loafers on the doorstep.

He had rushed to Shiho's underground room but found it locked. It took him a few minutes to locate the key and when he did, his hands were shaking too hard to get it into the hole.

"Shiho!" he called out and swung the door open.

At first, he thought it was his imagination. Two figures locked together in an almost loving embrace. Shinichi and Shiho. How could it have been?

But then he saw the blood. It was all over them. All over the floor. All over the walls. Some were splattered on Shiho's computer screen with clumps to them that he preferred not to know what they were.

He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. Shinichi and Shiho, two people that he had always thought of as his children. What would Shinichi's parents have said about their son's death now? What would Ran's reaction be when she heard the news? They would be devastated.

And Shiho, who never thought that she was loved by anyone. What would her friends say? What would Ayumi, Genta and Mitsuhiko feel? 

He himself wanted to fall down on his knees and weep. Two people that he loved, both gone now. And not in the hands of the men in black but by their own. Two youths, both with a bright future for them, both loved and cherished. Both would be missed.

"Professor."

He looked up in shock as Shiho's body shifted. His heart began to thump wildly. __

_She's alive!_

But she didn't stand up. She didn't even turn to him. Instead, her body slid over the other's and slumped on the floor at an unnatural angle. He saw what he hadn't noticed earlier.

Her head was blown off. In its place now was just a mess of tissues and blood.

And the one who had called out to him now only stared at the lifeless corpse. Slowly, as if it was excruciatingly painful to do so, he lifted his head to look at the Professor.

"She shot herself." There was a path in his crimson cheeks. He only let the red drops fall onto his lap. These were tears that he'd shed for the girl he thought was a dear friend. These were the tears for yet another who had lost her way.

"Shinichi, what happened?" the Professor asked.

"She wanted me to love her. I did. But not the way I loved Ran."

The Professor looked away from those anguished eyes. He had no words for the young man that could take the pain away.

"And now, here we are."


End file.
